


Better in Time

by warheart



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Addiction, Blowjobs, Cancer, Divorce, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, F/M, First Kisses, First Time, Hospitalization, M/M, baby boyfriends, but happy things too, candy striper liam!, handjobs, lots of sad things, niall is a ray of fucking sunshine as per usual
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-10
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-03-07 01:22:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3155591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warheart/pseuds/warheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry spends a lot of time in the hospital. It's normally miserable, until he meets Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Hi. This is my first time writing fan fiction since 2004. I know it'll be shit for now, but give me a chance to get back into the swing of things :) This isn't really a chapter; it's more for me to practice!

Harry is an old pro at this, really.

At first it had been- well, not scary, he supposes. He was much too young to really understand what was happening. Looking back, he thinks a good description would be overwhelming. It was just that one day he was normal, and then a little later he started feeling sick, and all of a sudden he was in and out of the hospital so frequently that he knew all of the nurses on the children’s oncology ward.

To have cancer at the age of nine was mostly inconvenient, Harry thinks. He lost his role in the school play because he had to have chemotherapy every day after school for almost a whole month. Then his hair started falling out in clumps just when he was starting to figure out how to get it into that cool messy skater look. When he finished that very first round of chemo, he was even skinnier than he had been before, and his mouth was always full of sores and he was just too tired to hang out with Josh and Ben all the time like before.

But having cancer at age fourteen is fucking terrifying.

Because Harry is a smart lad and he understands now just how sick he is, and for the first time in his life he starts to worry about dying. He knows the names of all the drugs he takes and what they do, and he knows how to read his blood test results and worst of all, maybe, is that he knows how to read the facial expressions of his mum, Robin, Gemma and all the doctors and nurses. Even when they don’t tell him with their words, he knows straight away if he’s going to have a good day or a bad day, just from the looks they give him, or each other when they think he can’t see. He knows if he’s going to be in for a hospital stay again or be switched onto different drugs or shuffled off to see another specialist.

So at the meeting with his “team” (as the medical staff call themselves to Harry, Ann, Robin and Gemma) on a Tuesday morning in January, Harry knows as soon as he sits down that he’s about to have a bad day.

***

He’s trying to choke down a yogurt and granola parfait when Daisy pokes him and says loudly, “Why is that boy wearing a scarf on his head?”

Louis stops with the spoon halfway to his mouth before putting it back into the container. It’s a good excuse to stop eating. Ruddy hospital food. It’s awful and Louis hates every mouthful. He has to spin around on the cafeteria table’s bench to see who Daisy is referring to, since she’s sitting opposite him and looking over his shoulder. He sees who she means quickly enough; not only since the cafeteria is mainly empty at this hour of the afternoon, but also because there is exactly one individual who is wearing a scarf on his head, and he happens to staring directly back at Louis.

The boy is around sixteen; Louis can tell because of how long his legs are; which means he’s tall and already been through a growth spurt or two. The scarf in question is wrapped about his head snugly and covers his ears too.

“He has cancer, Dais,” Louis says quietly, leaning over the table after spinning back round to face his sister. “And keep your voice down, he’s not that far away.”

Daisy shifts to the side to peek round Louis’ shoulder for another glance. As soon as she manages to lean far enough to presumably catch another glimpse of the boy, she gasps and hunches down into the table. “Oh no, Lou,” she breathes out in a dramatic whisper. “He saw me!”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Well, yeah, course he did. He’s only about twenty feet away. He’s got cancer, he’s not blind.” He turns around once more and again makes eye contact with the boy who is sitting in one of the cafeteria’s arm chairs. He gives a small wave and an apologetic smile which he can only hope conveys the sentiment of, _please excuse my tiny and annoying sister who’s staring at you as if you’re an animal in the zoo_. He thinks it works, since the boy also gives a wave back with a tired smile.

There’s just no nice way of saying it- the poor lad looks like shit. His skin is pale and sallow and his eyes are underscored by large purple bags. Louis can tell even from a distance that he has sores in the corners of his mouth and his cheeks are oddly puffy.

Louis turns back to tell his sister why the scarf is on the boy’s head, but when he opens his mouth he finds there is no one in front of him to explain anything to. With a sinking feeling in his stomach he whips back around to see Daisy bounding across to the armchair, her dirty blonde hair swaying down her back as she runs.

With a groan, Louis rises from the bench and hurries after the little girl, arriving just in time to witness her say, “My brother says you’re wearing that scarf because you have cancer,” and then staring at the boy intently without moving a muscle.

“Daisy!” he chastises her, grabbing her arm and pulling her back from where she stands at the boy’s feet. “I’m so sorry, she’s curious, she doesn’t mean to be rude, and she took off before I could stop her-”

“It’s okay,” the scarf-headed boy cuts Louis off as he leans down to speak to Daisy. “I do have cancer, yeah. The medicine I take to get better makes my hair fall out! Isn’t that weird? So I wear a scarf to keep my head warm in the winter,” he finishes, smiling big at Daisy so all his teeth show, and making a dimple pop out in his rounded left cheek.

Daisy beams, clearly thrilled that he has supplied her with an actual answer instead of telling her “it’s grown up things” like her mum does when Daisy asks too many questions. She pulls herself from Louis’ grip and sidles right up to the arm of the chair where she shyly runs her fingers across the fabric. “I’m Daisy,” she says as she looks into the boy’s face. “I’m five!” she adds on proudly, her grin getting adorably toothy.

“Very pleased to meet you Daisy. My name is Harry and I’m fourteen,” the boy says and sticks his hand out to grab and shake hers, making her giggle as her hand in nearly totally lost in Harry’s very large one. He looks up to Louis, who extends his hand as well and says, “Louis. Sixteen.”

Harry smiles at the both of them, and there’s a moment of awkward silence as the two siblings stand there. Louis really doesn’t have anything to say to this person whom he’s only just met, and in a spectacularly mortifying way nonetheless, so he says to Daisy, “Well, we should probably go. Mum’s still upstairs and she’ll be mad if she has to come and get us.” To Harry he says, “Nice to meet you, mate. Hope your treatment goes well.”

He takes Daisy’s hand as Harry says, “Yeah, me too mate. Bye.”

As they walk back through the cafeteria and towards the exit, Daisy says, “You didn’t finish your yogurt Lou! Mummy will be cross with you. She gave you money and you were supposed to eat all of it!”  
But Louis grabs the unfinished parfait and says with a wink, “Mummy won’t know if you don’t tell her.” Daisy giggles conspiratorially when her brother throws the cup in the bin as they pass through the doors.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think <3


End file.
